Teru Talk Newsletter
Volume II, Issue
11, March 12,
2012
Teru Talk by Michael
Theroux (pronounced
"Terú")
Teru's Trash Talk
For
conversion technology (CT)
development and implementation,
it seems we may finally be
getting into the "put up or
shut up" phase. Globally, we
are seeing everybody from the
smallest communities to massive
international conglomerates
deciding to give CTs a chance.
Teru's favorite this week: New
York City Mayor Michael
Bloomberg says it's time to see
if non-incineration Waste
Conversion can actually be
accomplished cleanly and safely
to increase the City's landfill
diversion, in addition to and
integrated with all the City's
other waste management and
recycling activities. On the
other side of the country,
Washington's Governor Gregoire
signed some common sense
biomass and waste conversion
methods into law, nixing silly
old exclusions in an effort to
increase renewables and bolster
the struggling forest-based
economy. The new law is bound
to instigate a burst of project
activity. And Oregon is well
into its own CT assessment,
holding its second key advisory
meeting to figure the Who,
What, Where, and How Much of
waste conversion.
It is a
puzzlement to me to still hear
apparently bright people claim
we can't cleanly recover
valuable electricity, fuels and
chemicals from the mountains of
urban, agricultural and forest
wastes we constantly pay to
throw away. The usual drone,
especially with the Military's
exploration of
waste-to-biofuels right now is
that the first few dribbles
cost way too much. Well, duh.
How much was a flat screen TV,
oh, say about five years ago?
Shall we look to standard
pricing practice for
pharmaceuticals? Cell phones,
computers, or CTs: come on,
folks, we know the drill. We
make it the hard way, we get it
out there and allow the Market
to sort out the winners, and
the prices drop as numbers go
up. Except perhaps with Eastern
Oil and other monopoly
commodities … but then, that
sort of false-value market
control is a lot of the impetus
for this whole waste
utilization push, isn't
it?
Hey
Rube!
As the
governments of our globe put
out the Requests, our industry
needs to stand to, fill out the
forms and file the proposals.
Yes, these are costly and
difficult, but nobody said this
would be simple or cheap. Yet
take a good look at the new
ARPA-E notice: for THAT, the
first step is to send in a
simple concept, to say, well
yes I DO have an idea, and I'm
ready to get to
work.
The
Week's Extra Reading
We had a
bad link in the
newsletter last week for
Teru's new article
describing the
New Forest
Planning Rule and Access to
Woody Biomass. If
you wanted to read
it but couldn't
connect, please try again,
and accept our
apologies.
The
Week's News
Air Liquide
Purchases Georecover
Renewable Landfill Gas
Assets
Air Liquide
Advanced Technologies U.S. LLC
announced that it has acquired
the landfill gas collection and
processing assets of the
company Georecover - Live Oak
LLC, including the company's
gas processing facility in
Conley, Georgia.
03/11/2012
GreenWatt
Raises EUR 6 MM in
Investment Round to Fund
International
Growth
Innogy Venture
Capital and SRIW joined the
European investment group
Gimv-Agri+ and existing
investors Energie Brabant
Wallon, Nivelinvest, Vives and
business angels to invest EUR 6
million in GreenWatt S.A.
03/11/2012
Washington
State Governor Signs Legacy
Biomass Facility
Bill
The Washington
Forest Protection Association
(WFPA) has announced that
Governor Chris Gregoire has
signed Senate Bill 5575 into
law to "put common sense back
into the system by allowing
facilities that can produce
renewable energy and organic
material to count."
03/11/2012
Pepco
Contracts with DC Water for
$170MM Turnkey Biogas to CHP
Plant
Headquartered
in Virginia, Pepco Holdings
subsidiary Pepco Energy
Services Inc. has announced
that it has signed an agreement
with the District of Columbia
Water and Sewer Authority (DC
Water) to design, build and
operate a combined heat and
power (CHP) plant fueled by
biogas from the agency's Blue
Plains Advanced Wastewater
Treatment Plant (AWTP).
03/09/2012
CalRecycle Schedules 3rd
Regulatory Cleanup Workshop:
Compostable
Materials
CalRecycle has
announced the next stage of
review for regulatory clean-up
of Title 14 and Title 27,
scheduling the 3rd informal
Workshop for March 27, 2012.
03/08/2012
Alphabet
Energy Secures Additional
$2MM to Advance Waste Heat
Recovery
San Francisco
area based Alphabet Energy has
announced it has now secured an
additional $2 million in
strategic capital from Hercules
Technologies Growth Capital,
following on last quarter's
Series A round support of $12
million, led by TPG Biotech.
03/08/2012
New Special
Economic Zone in Cayman
Islands Seeks High-Tech
Companies
The government
of the Cayman Islands has
announced launch of Cayman
Enterprise City (CEC) as the
first Special Economic Zone
(SEZ) in the Caribbean.
03/08/2012
Metso to
Build Bio-Oil Demonstration
Plant for Fortum Power in
Finland
Global
technology supplier Metso
Corporation has announced
signing of an agreement with
Fortum Power to build a bio-oil
production facility in Joensuu,
Finland. 03/08/2012
Virdia Has
New Name, Closes $30M, Plans
Expansion to
Mississippi
California-based
biofuels company HCL CleanTech
has changed its name to Virdia
and has announced that it has
closed on over $30 million in
its recent funding round.
03/07/2012
SNV
Completes Feasibility
Studies for Biodigesters in
Peru and
Bolivia
The
Netherlands-based philanthropic
organization SNV reports on
results of recently completed
feasibilities studies for
development of national
programs in Peru and Bolivia to
establish rural biodigesters.
03/07/2012
ALL Power
Labs to hold Gasification
PowerExchange
Workshop
ALL Power Labs
(APL) has announced a three-day
Gasification PowerExchange
Workshop #11 to be conducted
March 30, 31 and April 1, 2012
in its Berkeley headquarters
and production factory.
03/06/2012
Itochu
Invests in ZeaChem for 2nd
Generation BioEthanol
Technology
Japan's Itochu
Corporation has announced
acquisition of shares in
advanced biochemical and
biofuel specialist ZeaChem, Inc
to further commercialize the
Colorado-based company's hybrid
microbial / thermal technology
platform. 03/06/2012
Hamworthy
Secures Contract for Biogas
Liquifaction Plant with
Cambi
Cambi AS has
contracted with Hamworthy Oil
& Gas Systems for biogas
handling and liquefaction at
the food waste to biogas plant
under construction in Nes,
Romerike near Oslo, Norway.
03/06/2012
Bingaman's
Clean Energy Standard Act of
2012 Includes
Waste-to-Energy
Senator
Bingaman (D-NM) introduced the
Clean Energy Standard (CES) Act
of 2012 (S. 2146) on March 1,
2012, an energy policy priority
for President Obama, but
without bi-partisan support in
the Senate.
03/05/2012
GESI Selects
InREFco Gasification for
Railroad Tie Conversion to
Energy
Project
Green Energy
Solution Industries, Inc (GESI)
has announced selection of a
thermal technology for
conversion of waste to
electricity or commodity
biofuels, entering into a
Letter of Intent with
International Renewable Energy
Facilitation Company (InREFco)
for the provision of a
starved-air gasification
platform. 03/05/2012
Winners
Announced in 2nd Annual
Clean Energy
Challenge
The Clean
Energy Trust (CET) has
announced selection and awards
for its 2nd annual Clean Energy
Challenge launched last
September. I
03/05/2012
Oregon DEQ
Plans 2nd Advisory Meeting
for Conversion Technology
Rulemaking
The Oregon
Department of Environmental
Quality (DEQ) has announced
a second open meeting on
April 12, 2012 for the
Advisory Committee selected
to assist in the Conversion
Technology (CT) Rulemaking
process
03/05/2012
Correction!
CalRecycle's Forum
on
Digesting Urban Organic
Residuals is on
May 30,
2012
and not March
30. Many thanks to our astute
readers for pointing that out
to us.
The Week's Action
Items
Due 03/16/2012: Proposals to
CPUC for Renewable DG Technical
Analysis
The due date
for proposals to
the California Public
Utilities Commission (CPUC)for
renewable DG technical analysis
services has been extended to
3/16/2012. 03/06/2012
Update
Due 03/30/2012: LOIs to ARPA-E
for Transformational Energy
Technologies
The US
Department of Energy has
announced that the Advanced
Research Projects Agency -
Energy (ARPA-E)
just
released a $150 million Funding
Opportunity Announcement
(DE-FOA-0000670), seeking
proposal submissions on all
forms of "transformational
energy technologies" that would
not otherwise be able to
attract private investment, but
could lead to breakthrough
energy technologies.
03/07/2012
Due 06/05/2012: Proposals to NY
City for Non-Incineration Waste
to
Energy
New York
City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg
has announced that a Request
for Proposals (PIN#
82712RR00028) issued by the
Department of Sanitation (DSNY)
is seeking development of a
pilot non-incineration facility
for conversion of the City's
waste to clean energy.
03/11/2012
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